


Adjustment

by Reikah



Category: Dragon Age - All Media Types, Dragon Age II
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-04-12
Updated: 2015-04-12
Packaged: 2018-03-22 12:34:58
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,705
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3729130
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Reikah/pseuds/Reikah
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A year after the end of Act 2, Anders comes home late, and Hawke missed him. Written for Eijentu, who gave me the opening sentence, "What's this on my pillow?"</p>
            </blockquote>





	Adjustment

"What's this on my pillow?"  
  
The voice sounded vaguely annoyed, and something about it tickled the back of Hawke's mind, wrenching him from an incredibly satisfying dream of riding a dragon across a field of joyfully running Mabari. He gave a sleepy grunt, stretched his toes out, and rolled over, pulling the blanket back up over his left shoulder, which felt a little cooler than the other.  
  
"Hawke," said the other person, patiently. "Hawke. Garrett. Get up. There's something on my pillow."  
  
"Hnnghfgh," Hawke said, with rather more eloquence than he felt anybody pulling him out of sleep deserved.  
  
"Hawke. Hawke. _Hawke_. Oh, fine, you can keep it."  
  
Something lukewarm and slimey was unceremoniously deposited on his head, and Hawke yelped as he sat bolt upright, grabbing for it; he pulled his hand back from near his ear, revealing... half a rat. Coated with a generous helping of drool. He blinked at it for several long seconds, attempting to make mental sense of what he held, and then he said, "And Merrill told me the rats in the Alienage were the largest in the city."  
  
"It's a Darktown rat," Anders agreed, and Hawke glanced over at him; he was fully dressed and had his arms folded. The other half of the rat had been lovingly placed on his pillow. Judging from the light filtering in from the windows in the main hall, through the half-open door, it was very late and he'd only just returned home. "There are no rats like Darktown rats. I thought we agreed no dogs in the bedroom?"  
  
"Dog is a mabari," Hawke protested, craning his neck to try catching a glimpse of possibly the most well-bred rat catcher in Kirkwall. Dog was sprawled upside down on the rug in front of the hearth fire, stubby tail wagging. Hawke raised the rat at him, like it was a tankard he was using to cheer Isabela with in the Hanged Man after her latest horrifying story.  
  
Anders sighed, crossing over to the nightstand on Hawke's side of the bed to pour water from the pitcher into the basin. His hands were filthy - long clinic shift indeed. Hawke had thought about telling him that he knew, from the state of his hands, if he was home late because of clinic business or mage underground business, but had decided against it. Anders tried very hard to keep the latter unassociated with the Hawke estate, too frightened of what might happen if Hawke were caught amidst an escape attempt. Hawke's attempts to explain that he would be perfectly okay with this generally fell on tense shoulders. "I'd ask why my pillow in particular, but I think we both know the truth," he said. The water in the basin was practically black, stubborn brown suds floating on the surface, but his hands looked pinker now.  
  
"'s a sign of great respect," Hawke said. "Mabari are ferocious predators. They usually only share their food with people they think are true warriors. Isn't that right, boy?"  
  
The dog chose that moment to break wind with a noise like a thunderstorm at sea, and Anders sighed heavily.  
  
"Have you eaten?" Hawke asked, yawning, and tossed the rat-half at Dog, who took it in the face like a so-called 'true warrior' before barking happily and rolling onto his belly. Anders flinched a little at the sound, and Hawke shoved the covers aside, drawing free of the sheets to sit at the edge of his bed, plunging his hands into the basin and swirling them around, flicking excess water off. He caught hold of the edges of Anders's coat, drawing him closer.  
  
"A little," Anders said. "Orana brought a basket down at suppertime."  
  
"Good." He began unfastening the buckles of Anders's coat, eyes down, starting at the bottom; Anders reached out and cupped the back of his neck carefully, fingers playing with the short, fine hair there. Hawke didn't say anything, and presently Anders sighed.  
  
"There was... an accident in one of the shaft-end communities," he said carefully. "Coterie looking for someone who shorted them, I think. A lot of people were hurt before they accepted nobody knew their man."  
  
"Anything -"  
  
"They didn't hurt me, and I didn't get a good look. The refugees won't say anything, either, they're too scared. It should be a job for the guard, but the day Aveline sends any of her people into Darktown is the day the Divine leashes Meredith. It's nothing for the Champion to deal with."  
  
Hawke sighed. "Makes a first," he murmured, slipping the last buckle free; the chain that kept Anders's pauldrons together had been loosened already, probably the moment Anders crossed through the cellar door, so he merely reached up and slid his coat off by the lapels. Underneath it the ragged shirt he wore was soaked solid with blood. "Y'know, if you need -"  
  
"I don't," Anders said, and smiled at him crookedly. "You're always accusing me of overworking myself, love. You know I fear the same for you."  
  
"I'd do anything for you," Hawke said, the confession blurting out of him; inwardly he cringed. Anders looked pleased, though, hazel eyes brightening, and he tried to take some consolation in the fact that whilst Anders might coax this hideously _earnest_ side of him free, it at least had not yet happened in front of Varric or Isabela. Merrill thought it was sweet. Fenris always looked at him with this vaguely nauseated expression, like he'd just whipped his shirt off to reveal a _Mr Garrett Anders xxx_ tattoo over his heart in the midst of the chantry.  
  
Joke was on Fenris, he'd tattoo that on his backside, better chance of making Anders sputter that way. He stood, crossing over to the wardrobe and hanging Anders's coat carefully over the door, the better to ensure the feathers didn't get excessively crumpled; Anders loved them so. Behind him he heard the rustling of cloth, and when he turned around, Anders had his shirt off and was sitting - stiffly, on the side of the bed, reaching to begin unlacing his left boot. Hawke watched him for a moment, assessingly; he looked tired and dirty, but his eyes were less sunken than they had been for a while, and his ribs weren't so stark under his skin. Satisfied, he came forward and slipped to his knees between Anders's thighs, hands going to the bandages wound around the top of Anders's right boot, where the laces had broken and Anders kept forgetting to visit a cobbler.  
  
"I'm not an invalid," Anders said, and in anybody else it might have sounded prickly or defensive but on Anders it only sounded uncertain. A year, Hawke reminded himself, was not yet enough time to undo a lifetime's worth of quick, urgent affairs.  
  
"I know," he said, "I just like touching you. The quicker I can get you naked, the better. For me, I mean, you know I like the view."  
  
Anders snorted. "Romantic," he said, but he was smiling that slightly crooked smile of his, so Hawke just beamed at him as he pulled Anders's boot off.  
  
"I'd have to be," he said. "Your feet certainly aren't going to star in any epic poems any time soon. Ugh."  
  
"That's not me, it's your dog," Anders protested, grinning. "Have you _smelled_ that thing? What happened to us keeping him out of our bedroom?"  
  
Hawke pouted at him. "He can work door handles, you know, he's a _mabari_. They're very clever. He also won't go near your socks after a day at the clinic, so stop trying to deflect -"  
  
"Oh, stop it," Anders said, laughing, and slipped both hands now around the back of his neck; he leaned forward as Garrett started on his other boot, pressing the tip of his nose to Hawke's forehead in a gesture somehow more cosy than a kiss, and said, "You're not exactly a basket of roses after a week on the Wounded Coast either, love."  
  
"Of course I'm not. I'm a veritable font of _manly_ smells. Haven't you read Varric's novels? The hero's supposed to smell kind of sweaty. The girls in there love it," Hawke said. His right hand carefully circled Anders's ankle, his left cupping his sole; he tugged and the boot slipped free. The questionable sock was peeled off next and tossed at the dog, who huffed in indignation and got to his paws, slinking out of the room.  
  
"I hesitate to think what that says about Varric's heroines," Anders replied, crooking an eyebrow. "And what were you doing reading Varric's novels?"  
  
"Hints," Hawke answered immediately. He reached forward, for the laces to Anders's breeches. "Unfortunately I'm pretty sure nothing I learned there is going to help us. Unless - d'you think I could joust Meredith for your hand? Maybe a midnight fencing match under the moon?"  
  
Anders sucked in a quick, quiet breath, and Hawke leaned back enough to actually see his eyes, worried he might have offended - offended Anders _or_ Justice. Idiot, making light of Meredith; as though she were not a figure of pure impassive nightmare, come from the dark parts of the Fade directly to prey on Anders and the himself and the rest of their kind. Anders didn't look hurt, which was a mercy. He looked stricken, regardless, and Hawke hesitated, unsure what to say. Maybe he'd put his foot in it again, say something dumb (if you could top his previous acts of inappropriateness - he'd never get over _Carver_ of all people slapping him one upside the back of the head after leaving Anders's clinic for the second time, hissing, "His old lover just died, _stop flirting_!")  
  
"Sorry," he said uncertainly, while Anders stared at him with those huge sad eyes, and Anders snorted, slipping his hands along to cup Hawke's face. "I'm not always - great at this, you know, words. Thing. Uh."  
  
"Maker," Anders said, voice a little deeper than it had been, and blinked at him, the corner of his mouth turning up, "I love you, you know."  
  
He leaned forward at the same time Anders did, and there was an awkward moment where their mouths weren't exactly aligned - but they adjusted to each other, as they'd been doing so far, and Anders's lips were dry and chapped and he tasted like, well, probably what a half-dead rat would taste like, but Andraste help him, Hawke was fucking _lost_ and it was _Anders_ kissing him, so he kissed back, tongue sweeping lazily into Anders's mouth, savoring the moment.  
  
It didn't last very long, but that was the beauty of it; little moments, each of them, but many of them, all together. Anders was here. Hawke would keep him here as long as he wanted to be here. ('Until the day we die,' a part of his memory helpfully provided; he remembered Varric wincing at that one over ale in the Hanged Man. 'Not the sort of thing you break out on a first, you know, liaison, Hawke,' he'd said. Hawke disagreed. It was exactly what you said on the first liaison with _Anders_.)  
  
Anders leaned back on the bed, holding out his arms, and Hawke climbed slowly to his feet, sliding on top of him; they kissed again as Anders clasped him close, a languid thrust of his tongue into Anders's mouth. He snaked an arm up and pulled out the hair tie, flicking it across the room where it would probably never be found again, and ran his hand through Anders's half-tail, enjoying the feel of his hair loose against his fingertips. He could feel Anders beginning to stir against his thigh, and it made him smile into the kiss. Anders broke it off with a small gasp, breathing heavily through his nose, and returned his smirk.  
  
Neither of them said anything. They didn't need to. Hawke planted both hands on the bed, either side of Anders's shoulders, and kissed him again briefly, then another on his chin, then once more, languid, along the line of his long throat. Anders hissed, hands slipping between them, fingers fumbling with his laces, and Hawke began slipping down the arched line of his body, back curved and chest bare; he scraped his teeth along the sharp sweeping wings of Anders's collarbones, sucked a bruising kiss _there_ , to his nipple, pressed his thumbs in Anders's hip bones and pushed him into the feather mattress. Anders grunted, a noise not exactly possessed of the greatest dignity and one that Hawke would have teased him about if it wasn't so fucking sexy, and reached for him, tracing his cheekbone with one rough, calloused thumb. Hawke angled his face, butting into the carress, and Anders drew in a hitching breath.  
  
"Careful there, what with all that heavy breathing the neighbours might call the guard," Hawke said. This was an old topic between them, how quiet Anders was between the sheets. Circle-born habit, he knew, not unlike the general surprise Anders felt whenever he performed a kindness just because he could. Still, he felt it his responsibility to let Anders know that he could let go, if he wanted.  
  
"You're a tease," Anders said, voice low, and Hawke snorted. He dipped his head and tongued lightly at Anders's navel, enjoying the rasp as his tongue caught the coarse blond hairs there, and followed the trail they made, leading him down, down where he wanted to go. His hands slid free of Anders's hips, caught the edges of his waistband, pushed his trousers down and apart, biting worshipfully at his lover's navel as his cock was slowly revealed, flushed red and wanting. When it was fully bared he glanced up along the long golden curve of Anders's body, watched him breathe out shakily and blink up at the ceiling several times.  
  
"Hey," he said, watching the way Anders's eyes dragged down to him. He licked his palm, grinning with what he _hoped_ was an intriguing expression and not one that more closely resembled Carver faced with a complex moral dilemma, and Anders raised an eyebrow. "Nice cock. Come here often?"  
  
Anders's whole face twitched, like he wanted to groan or laugh but couldn't decide which. "Oh, more than you know," he said, in a low voice that made Hawke shiver all the way through to the base of his spine. "You're aware the other half of your dog's 'gift' is still on my pillow, right?"  
  
"Right," Hawke said, unsure what had prompted this. "Do you really want me to stop and take it away, or...?"  
  
Anders was shaking his head before he finished. "No. No! Keep going. I'm - I'm taking your half of the bed after, though."  
  
Hawke snorted, licking his lips, liking how Anders's eyes were drawn to them. "You can take anything you want," he said, and when Anders rolled his eyes and opened his mouth, hastily leaned in to wrap his palm around the base of Anders's cock, feeling the hard core there, the soft skin, the coarse hair; Anders closed his mouth so fast Hawke could almost imagine the _click_. He did have a nice dick, insofar as Hawke could tell. He licked his lips once more and slowly touched the tip of his tongue to the underside, right above where his fist ended, and got on with it; he licked a slow path up from his fist to the head, red and eager before him, and back down, taking his time, enjoying his work; Anders hissed a slow, steady breath out above him and grabbed hold of a fistful of the sheets, fingers working their way deep in the fabric, his other arm flung over his face. Hawke took the head in his mouth, feeling the weight of it on his tongue, enjoying its heaviness, the salty taste of _Anders_ , here in the most personal part of him. He took as much of the head as he could, still gripping the shaft, and brought his other hand into play, slipping it down there between Anders's legs to his sac, full and heavy and brushing his knuckles with their soft blond fuzz.  
  
Anders might not cry out like some people did during sex (Hawke reluctantly had to include himself in that description, if only because experience had taught him that _everyone knew_ when Anders was fucking him into the mattress and worse, Sandal would on a whim repeat what he'd heard until stopped) but if you were watching him his tells were plenty obvious; his hips writhed side to side, his foot slipped onto Hawke's thigh and Hawke could feel his toes curl; the salty taste on his tongue grew steadily thicker. He inched the foreskin back and swept his tongue between it and the sleek head of Anders's cock, trying not to grin at the sudden rasping breath Anders drew in, the way his foot drummed so suddenly to attention that only his heel remained, pressed there against him; his fingers were knotted so thoroughly in the sheets his knuckles were turning white. Hawke sucked hard, feeling his cheeks hollow with the movement, and was rewarded with a small desperate _whimper_ , Anders's legendary self-control fraying just a little at the seams (and it was cast-iron, nobody went a year alone in a cell without succumbing to demons without being bloody unbreakable; not that Hawke's own heart hadn't broken on his behalf).    
  
"Hawke," Anders whispered, his voice steady and even, perfectly calm. His toes were drumming a furious pattern on Hawke's thigh. "Garrett, love -"  
  
"Mmm," Hawke replied, mouth too busy for anything else; he cupped Anders's balls gently, feeling the heft and weight of them, and loosened his grip on Anders's shaft, letting himself slide further down. He couldn't take it all, not yet. It was a long-term goal and a work in progress. He _mmm_ 'd again as he went and _felt_ it coming, so to speak; Anders was pushing at his leg now, pushing him away, with his whole foot; he placed his free hand on Anders's inner thigh, thumb stroking at the crease between his balls and his leg in what he hoped was a soothing manner, and began to draw back, removing his hand from Anders's thigh to rub at himself, still in his smalls. His belly was coiled tight, nothing to do with his own condition and everything to do with Anders, the sense and musky smell of him, here just for him.  
  
"Hawke," Anders said again, tenser, and then, "Oh, oh - _oh_ -" And he was coming, a flood of salty warmth over Hawke's tongue, Hawke catching what he could and swallowing it all without complaint, loving the sight of him in the aftermath, loving him himself. Maker, he had it bad. He pressed harder at the stiff heat between his own legs, reaching down with his other hand while Anders lay there breathing slowly and staring up at the ceiling, and stuffed his other hand incautiously into the waistband. He felt too warm, the air cold on every inch of him, his face burning as he stared at Anders, at his softening cock glistening still with his own saliva. _I did that_ , he thought, the tightness in his belly ramping up, not a little proud. Anders had had a lot of partners. He didn't care about _them_ \- just about Anders, and that he hoped he compared. Anders had never indicated otherwise, but Hawke was keenly aware that this was one of those bizarre things that made him _himself_ , like his inability not to sass templars despite being possessed of illegal magic, or his amazing tendency to blunder into threats to Kirkwall while minding his own business and/or looking for unguarded crates to rummage through for coin or junk.  
  
He pulled his smallclothes low just in time; he came into his hand with a yelp that made Anders start laughing, a jolting movement that only stopped when Hawke surged to his feet and slid over him again, putting their faces together for a kiss while surreptitiously reaching for Anders's rat-laden red silk pillow to wipe his hand clean. This accomplished, he shoved it off the bed, Anders twisting under him to watch it go with an adorable wrinkling of his nose. "I love you," he said, kissing the side of his long nose.  
  
Anders swallowed, tensing underneath him; but Hawke waited it out, _one two three four -_  
  
" - I love you, too," Anders whispered, relaxing slowly, muscle by muscle. Down from six seconds; the post-orgasm urge to flee was getting better day by day. Hawke kissed him again, in the same spot, then at the edge of his mouth, feeling it curve into a smile beneath his lips, then at the very corner of his jaw; Anders grunted and pushed, rolling them both over and pulling at him until they rested side-by-side on the bed properly, both wedged onto Hawke's side, legs tangled, face to face. His arm was tight around Hawke's waist. He touched his forehead to Hawke's and they lay like that for several long moments, as their breathing slowed and steadied, Hawke watching Anders's face gently slacken; it had been a long day for him, up early this morning.  
  
"Are you going back to the clinic tomorrow?" He hadn't meant to ask, but it slipped out, like everything seemed to slip out around Anders (sometimes literally, to Isabela's delight). Anders's eyes were thin slits, brown and bright.  
  
"Mmm," he said.  
  
"Wake me up first," Hawke said. "We'll have breakfast before you go. Please?"  
  
"Always," Anders said without opening his eyes any. Hawke sighed and nuzzled against his throat, feeling Anders roll a little away from him, releasing his deathly grip on his lover's abdomen. His cheek rested against a defined clavicle; Anders smelled of sweat, but it was fresh sweat, which in retrospect he supposed was what Varric meant. He'd definitely need a bath tomorrow, once it had dried. They both would. They could probably share, in fact; the thought brightened him and he raised a hand, resting it against Anders's chest, over his heart, and let himself follow his lover into a well-deserved rest.  
  
Thirty-four minutes later, the dog dropped another decapitated rat on the other side of the bed, but that was a problem for the morning.

**Author's Note:**

> This was my first Dragon Age fic, go me!


End file.
